Farm News for Saturday, January 20, 2018

[photo] Well, the weather outside is frightful...
We're up to about 2 inches as darkness falls, and it's supposed to
continue until around midnight. Not too much, really, but my challenge
becomes driving the empty market truck up the hill tomorrow to go out
and get more apples and those greens I mention below. Hope the road crew
does a good job with the cinders by morning!

On-the-farm (and off) ...
Last week was PA Farm Show week for me (some pics at the bottom of this
email). I've been a regular for about 15 years now, spending about 6
hours at the Vegetable Growers food stand in the Food Court. This year
my task was making strawberry smoothies, again. Prior to the work shift I
wander the acres of shows, stands and exhibits in the huge building
complex, just a 1/4 mile or so from the state capitol. The Farm Show
complex is about 75 miles from our farm, and usually involves going or
coming in snow, sleet or rain. This year it was sunny and nearly 50
degrees -- the warm spell between two frigid weeks.

[photo]The back of the truck last time I
was down, with the small heater and plastic windows for light, managed
to keep me warm enough.

Produce
This marks the second time in a row that our 20 raised beds of greens
and herbs in tunnels and greenhouse have been frozen -- and are supposed
to remain frozen -- the entire sales week. Perhaps that should be
normal at this time of winter yet, as I mentioned last time, it's been
years since we've had this happen, and now it's happened twice in one
month! Strange. But there's good news also: The Martins, who have three
large greenhouses, have roared back this week with lots of greens, so
you won't go short. Of course, they are cranking the heat and artificial
lighting to make this happen, so I'm not sure this passes -- in fact
I'm sure it doesn't -- as 'sustainable' agriculture, but that's what
we've got, and it beats importing it from the other side of the
continent or world, so we all make our choices, right?

[photo] Sam and I put in two good days last week
(the warm ones following the Farm Show) cutting, splitting &
stacking firewood, hopefully enough to get us through the winter. The
carport below is where we stacked it, I think about 2 cords worth (not
all shown).

Hope you have a good week and that we see you on Saturday.

Thanks for your support, Randy, Chris & Sam

[photo] The always-popular baby chick station...

[photo] ...and a Bantam rooster, one of the less-outrageous looking chickens in the Poultry Hall.